Anonymous Panel Questions

So, after the Female Motorcyclist Panel it ended up being mostly a conversation amongst the panelists, which is great. But, I lost interest after about 15 posts. It got me to thinking....unlike normal forum threads where you have one or more crackheads that go off topic or becomes rude, that is the downside. Have you guys discussed the option and not sure how you would go about it.....but, where non-panelists could engage but not disrupt? Same thing on the Book publishing thread... Like on some live YouTube deploys, twitter feeds or comments publish to the right....what if people could submit questions and comments but their comments were anonymous and maybe even screened? So, the person looking to make a name of himself as a troll is basically cut off at the knees.

Conversations in type are much different than between "two ferns". So, by eliminating the dynamic mode of live conversation, a typed conversation seems less compelling if the audience cannot participate and get some skin in the game if you know what I mean.

Side note....not sure if you guys are doing some coding...but, on a Win7 machine in Firefox without all my Adblockers off, 50% of the time I cannot type any text into a topic. I have to outsmart it and first act like I am going to add a photo, then I can type. This started sometime last Thursday/Friday.

Side note....not sure if you guys are doing some coding...but, on a Win7 machine in Firefox without all my Adblockers off, 50% of the time I cannot type any text into a topic. I have to outsmart it and first act like I am going to add a photo, then I can type. This started sometime last Thursday/Friday.

That's a really good question, Robert. We anticipated from the very beginning that the first feature people would ask for with panels is how to ask a question of the panel. On the Wayne Goodrich interview, we started a side conversation and people enjoyed asking questions there.

I'm not sure why I didn't do that on this panel, but I'm guessing I had some fear of some people using it to troll the panelists. You're probably right that what we need is a way for questions to appear in a side conversation but be screened. Anyone who starts a conversation on Cake has the ability to delete comments in it, so staying on top of it and deleting awful comments quickly might work. This is what Reddit does with their AMAs

YouTubers like Joe Rogan say they can't read the comment section after they post their interviews. I guess talk radio like on NPR must screen the callers.

Yea, I would have no idea how to minimize the moderation portion....but, thanks for not thinking I was being out of line. I really do love the idea of "conversations" and panels but when it is not real-time there is the risk of engagement fallout.

It's not currently possible to change a panel convo to a public convo after publishing. We're hesitant to allow this because it could surprise panelists who joined under the impression that the conversation wouldn't be open to posts from uninvited users.

But you're right that it could be useful to be able to start off a multi-post conversation without being interrupted, with the goal of later opening it up. We'll give it some more thought.

Don't miss a post

Follow this conversation to get notified about new posts. Find it later in the "Following" feed.